Become the Expert – Invest in Your Future!

Ok so you want to learn everything you can about a certain subject. Become an expert. It takes around 10,000 hours to become an expert. If you worked at it 40 hours per week you would get there in 5 years. If you do it part time, while you are working to put a few pennies together, then it will take 30 years. The choice is yours.

Becoming a realtor, mortgage broker, contractor, attorney, appraiser, and loan servicing company all require a learning curve. How long do you have before you are at a loss of income? The person who goes to College postpones their earning power for a period of time. They will command more money than a High School educated person. The interesting fact is the person who works straight out of High School will earn more gross money until the 20th year out of High School. After that the College educated person will earn 2 times more over their life time. One interesting idea to ponder is what do the people without the College education do with that money and if they invested it they would have more net worth at the age of 65 through compounding. Because the High school graduate only has life experience and does not think about investment, nor have the educational background on economics, they tend to fail financially. Understand that if that is you, then you are under more pressure to succeed than someone who went to College.

Ok, so what do you need now, cash flow or residual income? (I have the answer so don’t think about it.) Cash flow. Business is always about cash flow, cash flow, & cash flow.

You have invested money in learning about real estate, probate, tax liens, wholesale, rentals, raising capital, buying notes, and lending. Follow through… there are resources which will hold you up. There is “free will” which will play into this for the customer. Put yourself in a follow through position. Throw a dart at your possible choices of vocation, interest, and skills, and go after it. Don’t ask yourself if it will work ask yourself if it doesn’t work after this amount of effort and resources what will I do? Don’t focus on failure, focus on the plan, which should have a safety valve to protect your ego, finances, and health.

Does it feel right to lend money? Does it feel right raising capital? Does it feel right to talk about probate? Does it feel right to work with contractors? Does it feel right to learn the rule and laws of the real estate professionals?

My thought is to develop relationships. GO for the conversation! Go for the exchange of information. Qualify the prospect. Test the prospect. I met an individual 3 years ago and had coffee with them. Their story was the same 3 years before as it was the day I had lunch with them again. He had the same story and dreams as before. I met him, and then tested him the first time I met him and he had not followed through. I dropped him. I confronted him at lunch with the story of how we had met before and what needed to happen to make this meeting productive. The conversation and lunch ended quickly.

We will all make mistakes and that is not the bad part. The bad part is when we let those mistakes occur again and again. The bad part is when we don’t learn. The bad part is when we don’t ask ourselves what we can improve on and grasp what we cannot fix. I knew I did not want to do business with the do nothing guy. So I did not. I want you to know I tested this guy the first time to make sure he was the real deal… he wasn’t.

Yeah you are going to fail. Failure helps the learning curve. It makes it faster and higher quality.

I understand you are struggling with finances now! Finances are a mind set. You have choices. Get 3 jobs. Or get on fire for you and your destiny. Get a coach or mentor who will shorten the learning curve. Even the poorest individual has discretionary income for liquor, cigarettes, clothes, or pleasure. Notice poor people don’t have money for education. You will trade time for money. As your finances grow you will trade money for time.

Are you asking yourself if you want a job or a business? I say go for the business. (Read “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber) It takes a certain mind set to be the RE agent or a broker and make it a walk away business. By you wholesaling a property you will learn 80% of what you will need to know to be in the real-estate business and lending business.